M-Town People

Product Notes

Eric L. Blake Bio ericblake@midsouth.rr.com M-Town People - pumping Eric Blake up Master trumpeters Eric Blake's fun, funky second CD 'M-Town People' puts jazz back on the dance floor. Combining sheerings keyboards with hip-hop percussion supporting multi-layered horn lines that tweak, tease and tantalize the listener, (and the candor), 'M-Town People' perfectly envisions and grabs up the listener into a grinning night on the boulevard and in the club. In Blake's hometown, Memphis, Tennessee, they've even come up with a new adjective to describe Blake's infectious sound-CRUNK JAZZ. The apt description stuck one night when Blake was playing the Gibson Guitar Factory, one of the premiere rooms in the city. In the short pause between tunes an excited member of the audience exclaimed, 'Man, that's CRUNK baby!' perfectly describing the energy Blake pours into his tracks. Says Eric, 'I wanted to capture the fun I had putting these cuts down and to have the listener jump into the music with me. And from the reaction so for, I think we've got something.' 'M-Town People' is a natural progression for Blake, whose evident talent as a young musician led him to prestigious studio sessions in Memphis's better studios and ultimately to a major gig with Isaac Hayes, traveling the world and matching sounds with the best. 'When we played Brazil, it was such an eye opening experience for me,' Eric recalls. 'Feeling the energy of the audience there never left me. And then you look back into jazz history and you find that all the best stuff form the old days, jitterbug, big band, be-bop was meant to entertain. The classics are people's music and that's what I set out to make.' Intricately accessible, 'M-Town People' intrigues as it makes your head dance and your body move. Was that a line from Night In Tunisia? Hold up, that's a Monk-style step down there, isn't it? With a hip-hop backline? Before you know it, you're adding your own finger-snapping and trying to follow Eric's brassy horn lines, crystallizing the energy in the tunes. Released on his own label CRUNK Records, 'M-Town People' is a party ready to happen, the perfect album to share with a group of friends.

Eric L. Blake Bio ericblake@midsouth.rr.com M-Town People - pumping Eric Blake up Master trumpeters Eric Blake's fun, funky second CD 'M-Town People' puts jazz back on the dance floor. Combining sheerings keyboards with hip-hop percussion supporting multi-layered horn lines that tweak, tease and tantalize the listener, (and the candor), 'M-Town People' perfectly envisions and grabs up the listener into a grinning night on the boulevard and in the club. In Blake's hometown, Memphis, Tennessee, they've even come up with a new adjective to describe Blake's infectious sound-CRUNK JAZZ. The apt description stuck one night when Blake was playing the Gibson Guitar Factory, one of the premiere rooms in the city. In the short pause between tunes an excited member of the audience exclaimed, 'Man, that's CRUNK baby!' perfectly describing the energy Blake pours into his tracks. Says Eric, 'I wanted to capture the fun I had putting these cuts down and to have the listener jump into the music with me. And from the reaction so for, I think we've got something.' 'M-Town People' is a natural progression for Blake, whose evident talent as a young musician led him to prestigious studio sessions in Memphis's better studios and ultimately to a major gig with Isaac Hayes, traveling the world and matching sounds with the best. 'When we played Brazil, it was such an eye opening experience for me,' Eric recalls. 'Feeling the energy of the audience there never left me. And then you look back into jazz history and you find that all the best stuff form the old days, jitterbug, big band, be-bop was meant to entertain. The classics are people's music and that's what I set out to make.' Intricately accessible, 'M-Town People' intrigues as it makes your head dance and your body move. Was that a line from Night In Tunisia? Hold up, that's a Monk-style step down there, isn't it? With a hip-hop backline? Before you know it, you're adding your own finger-snapping and trying to follow Eric's brassy horn lines, crystallizing the energy in the tunes. Released on his own label CRUNK Records, 'M-Town People' is a party ready to happen, the perfect album to share with a group of friends.